Le train (1973)

Director:

Pierre Granier-Deferre

Writers:

Georges Simenon (novel)
Pierre Granier-Deferre (adaptation) ...

Release Date:

31 October 1973 (France)

Genre:

Drama | War

Plot:

Two people, a Frenchman Julien Maroyeur and a Jewish German woman (Anna Kupfer) met on a train while escaping the German army entering France.

Plot Keywords:

France | Train | 1940s | French Resistance | Beautiful Woman

Cast

Jean-Louis Trintignant	...	Julien Maroyeur
Romy Schneider	...	Anna Kupfer
Maurice Biraud	...	Maurice
Paul Amiot	...	François dit Verdun - un ancien combattant
Nike Arrighi	...	Monique Maroyeur
Paul Le Person	...	Le commissaire
Anne Wiazemsky	...	Anna Maroyeur
Roger Ibanez	...	Inconnu / Stranger
Jean Lescot	...	René
Franco Mazzieri	...	Maquignon / Horse dealer
Serge Marquand	...	Moustachu / Mustachio
Régine	...	Julie
Jacques Alric
Henri Attal
Paul Bonifas

Also Known As:

Noi due senza domani (Italy)
The Last Train (USA) (DVD title)
The Train (International: English title)

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

France | Italy

Language:

French

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Studios de Boulogne-Billancourt/SFP - 2 Rue de Silly, Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, France

Company:

Lira Films

Trivia:

Final film of Paul Amiot.

THE LAST TRAIN (Pierre Granier-Deferre, 1973) **1/2

Unusual but not terribly compelling WWII drama almost wholly set aboard a train (transporting French people fleeing from the oncoming Nazi invaders). The film's core is the budding romance between fellow passengers Jean-Louis Trintignant (whose pregnant wife and young daughter are staying in a different compartment and eventually get 'lost' along the way) and Romy Schneider, a German-Jew war widow.

Despite a busy narrative - Trintignant stepping down at every station to ask for the possible whereabouts of his family, Schneider being picked on by a group of loutish passengers in view of her aristocratic airs (meanwhile, an ageing prostitute is all-too-willing to render her services free of charge in such hard times!) and for whom the usually meek Trintignant stands up, a rather underdeveloped subplot involving young single mother Anne Wiazemsky (then still married to Jean-Luc Godard), etc. - the tone of the film is too glum and the treatment too conventional to generate much audience involvement; that said, the interspersing of black-and-white newsreels of similar events from the era was an inspired touch and the scene in which the train comes under aerial attack from the Nazis, leaving numerous victims, is nicely handled (even if the moment when a couple are mown down while relieving themselves in an open field comes off as unintentionally funny!). Besides, the film has other virtues in the pleasant countryside photography of Walter Wottitz (an expert in WWII-based films, among them John Frankenheimer's THE TRAIN [1964] - which was actually filmed in France!) and a lush score from Philippe Sarde.

An interesting moment in the film occurs when Trintignat scoffs at Schneider's recounting of how the Nazis intended to exterminate the Jewish population, which gives credence to the notion that the world only became aware of the full extent of the Holocaust after the war was over. When the train arrives at its destination, Trintignant is re-united with his family (including a new-born son) - but not before having passed off Schneider as his wife to the Gestapo officials! At the end, however, when she's captured as a member of the Resistance they're somehow able to link her back to him and the couple are brought together for questioning...